Harrison was inspired to write “Taxman” when he discovered how much he was earning after accounting for taxes. Apparently each Beatle kept only 5% of what they earned. As Harrison said, “‘Taxman’ was when I first realised that even though we had started earning money, we were actually giving most of it away in taxes. It was and still is typical.” The reason for this was that due to how much The Beatles were earning, they were in one of the top tax brackets in the United Kingdom. In a 1984 interview with Playboy magazine, fellow Beatle Paul McCartney agreed with Harrison’s depiction of the circumstances surrounding the writing of “Taxman”: “George wrote that and I played guitar on it. He wrote it in anger at finding out what the taxman did. He had never known before then what he’ll do with your money.”